


Not My Problem

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [213]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - College/University, Dirty Talk, Fantasizing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation in Shower, Mating Cycles/In Heat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-09-28 12:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17183135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The guy down the hall has a problem. It's not Keith's responsibility to solve it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: A Christmas break binge of Voltron because lord knows I need another ship.

The guy down the hall has a problem. Keith’s never met him, only seen him a handful of times, but his nose knows: whatever’s bothering the guy is making him smell hella gray. Gray like storm clouds, gray like the world’s faded, gray like doors shut and all the bolts shot, locking the guy and his unhappiness up on their own. Even Hunk can smell it, the scent is so strong, and Hunk can’t tell a beta from a burnt strudel on a good day.

“Geez,” he says that night over dinner--pizza straight from the box at the kitchen counter--“what do you think’s wrong with him?”

“Honestly?” Keith says after a mouthful of pepperoni. “No freaking clue.”

Hunk’s eyebrows hit his bangs and he nearly knocks over his beer. “Dude, you have like the strongest nose in the quadrant. How in the heck can you not know?”

Keith shrugs. “Well, I’ve never met the guy. That’s probably not helping. I’ve got nothing to compare it against.”

“But, ok, but--aren’t you worried? I mean, whatever it is that’s going on with him can’t be good.”

“What do you want me to do, knock on his door and say, _hey neighbor! We’ve actually never met but dude, you stink. Wanna tell me your problems_?”

Hunk spreads his hands, sends cheese and grease everywhere. “Uh, duh. Yeah.”

“Ha ha. No. That’s not happening.”

“Maybe we should call somebody, then. A doctor or an ambulance or something.”

“Hunk, come on.” Keith’s face heats, annoyance flickering at his heels. “We should stay out of this. The guy isn’t dying.”

“Oh, is that your bar for helping somebody, dude? Nice.” Hunk grabs his longneck and another two slices, gives Keith a look like dry ice. “And by nice I mean dickish. And heartless. You're being a dickish, heartless guy right now, Keith.”

“Heartless?” Keith calls at Hunk’s back, at the shoulders squared in defeat. “Since when is not prying into other people’s business heartless, man, huh?”

The only answer he gets is a one-finger salute and the slamming of Hunk’s bedroom door.

It’ll be better in the morning, Keith tells himself as he cleans up the kitchen, hits the lights and locks the front door. He probably had a bad day at work, this guy. Ok, a bad few days. Maybe more like a week. But he’s older than they are, this guy; has a good job, according to the sweet ride in his parking space. He has people over every now and again, friends or whatever. He’s fine. And if he isn’t right then, he will be. Just gotta give the whole thing some time.

 

*****  


But the morning, the scent’s 10 times stronger, which is bad, and Hunk won’t talk to him, just stares at him so hard every time his back is turned that it feels like scorch, which is worse. Then the train’s late and he has to run the last three blocks to school without stopping for coffee. It is not awesome. And then there is Lance.

“What the fuck!” his lab partner snaps when he slides in seconds before their 8:30 lab. “You murder a sad clown on your way in or something?”

“Huh?”

Lance waves his hands at him, makes a truly epic face. “Dude, you freaking _reek_.”

“Do I?

“Pfaw! Can you not tell? Ok, that’s worse.”

There’s a wave of heat on Keith’s neck, another that bites at his ears. “It’s not _me_.”

“Um, yeah it is. I’m standing right--”

“No! No, I mean, it is me but it’s not coming from me. There’s a guy down the hall from us, an alpha, and he’s--”

“A seriously sad clown?”

“Depressed or something, yeah. I guess.”

“Wait, or something? He smells like Eau du Black Dog, this guy, and you didn’t, like, stop by to make sure he’s still breathing?”

Keith scrubs a hand over his face, fights the instinct to bang his head on the lab bench. What the hell, universe, he thinks. What the hell. “It’s not my problem, Lance.”

“Sure it is,” Lance says. He pokes at the air with his pencil. “You alphas like _all for one and one for all_ or some shit, aren’t you?”

“No,” Keith says through gritted teeth. “It’s an outdated cultural construct. Bullshit nostalgia." 

“Aw, yeah you are. That’s like the plot of every chick flick ever: two proud alphas bashing heads, trying to take down the other, then realizing their feelings and--”

“Those are movies, asshat. Not real life.”

Lance yawns, somehow manages to laugh through a bone-cracking stretch. “Yeah, well, there was some truth in it once, right? So maybe give the guy a courtesy knock tonight for old times’ sake.”

“Excuse me?"

Suddenly the door bangs open and their physics prof stumbles in, his arms full of books, his face full of mustache. “Ah!” he says brightly, squinting, like he’s surprised to see the room full. “Morning. It is morning, isn’t it? Must be, because there’s the sun!”

“Hoo boy,” Lance mutters. “Wonder if he remembers which class this is. Maybe we can convince him it’s Chem 101 again. That was fun.”

“Good lord,” their prof says cheerfully. “What is that god-awful stench? You there, lads in the back, open the windows a crack, eh?”

Having the windows open helps, as does a full day of classes; it pulls Keith’s mind away from the whole situation, from everything except taking notes and keeping Lance away from his cigarettes--“Hey, I only wanted one!”--and speaking up just enough to keep the class participation part of his grade in good shape. It’s nice, actually, to lose himself in his Monday/Wednesday routine, to keep pace of the hours by which room he’s in, which building, which prof is wandering around at the front of the class. As the day passes, he can feel himself mellow, feel the twist of annoyance in his spine slowly, slowly unwind.

So he’s an alpha. So their neighbor’s an alpha. Big freaking deal. Most people these days don’t give a damn about anybody else’s biology, do they, don’t order their lives around what parts, what instincts they do or don’t have. Sure, it’s still a thing in media, alphas being bros, but hey, betas as eunuchs is a trope too even though that hasn’t been true in like almost a century. So he has no special responsibility for the sad mystery man. Zero. Zilch. None.

He hangs onto that, gets real comfortable with it, up and until the time he walks back through his building’s door.

Because the smell is overpowering--definitely sad now, bordered by something aching and sweet--and the closer he gets to his apartment, the more it claws at his throat, that smell, the more it makes him want to weep. It’s deeply fucking unsettling, as is his realization that he’s walking past his apartment--wait, what?--and dropping his backpack and putting his fist into the other alpha’s front door.

It opens.

“Can I help you?” the guy says.

He’s taller than Keith grokked before, dressed in soft-looking jeans and a gray henley the same color as a big shock of his hair. His eyes are dark, narrowed, like the light in the hallway’s a shock. And he's also unspeakably pretty, the kind of handsome that makes people stop in the street. Damn. How the hell had Keith missed that?

“I--” Keith gets out. “I was gonna ask you that.”

“Me? Why?”

“Um, you, ah”--god, does he really not know? What’s a nice way to say _the whole building stinks of your sadness?_ \--“you smell like something’s not right.”

Neighbor guy blinks. Not once, but twice. Manages to look genuinely confused. “I do?”

“Yeah. Big time. Everybody’s noticed.”

Ok, maybe not the best thing to say to the guy, if the blanch and sharp gasp are any indication. “Everybody’s--what?”

“Can I come in?” Keith blurts out. “I mean, I’m not trying to be weird, but it would be easier to like talk about this someplace other than the middle of the hall, you know?”

Another blink and the guy steps aside, gestures, and Keith steps inside.

“You’re an alpha,” neighbor guy says. It’s not a question.

“Yeah.”

The corners of the guy’s mouth turn up. “I thought I was the only one in the building.”

“What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t. It’s something I’m always curious about, that’s all. About how many of us there are left.” He holds out a hand. “I’m Shiro.”

“Keith.”

Their palms touch, then their fingers; Shiro’s grip is warm and strong. “Nice to meet you, Keith.”

“What’s wrong?” The words shoot out before Keith can stop them, before Shiro can let go of his hand. “Why are you so upset?”

Shiro lets go of his hand. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

“It’s not, except that you’ve made it impossible for everyone in the building to ignore.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Not bad, exactly. Just strong. You don’t have to be an alpha to smell it.”

Shiro’s face flushes, a tinge of pink that highlights the horizoned scar on the bridge of his nose. “Well. That’s humiliating.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”

“No, no. Of course you weren’t. It’s just--” A rueful smile. “I’m not one to broadcast my problems. Guess my body had other ideas.”

“Is there anything I can do?” God, Keith thinks, startled by the sound of his own voice, where the fuck is this coming from? “Ah, somebody I can call for you, maybe? A friend, or--?”

“No.” There’s an unmistakable well of grief in that no, in the shake of Shiro’s head. It makes Keith want to grab his hand again, clutch it tight between his fingers. “Which is maybe the problem, I guess.”

“Huh?”

Shiro studies him. “Are you sure you want to hear this, guy I met five minutes ago?”

“If you need to say it then yes, I do.”

A beat, full and quiet. Then: “Let’s go sit down.”

“I’m fine here."

Shiro laughs, wan and shaky. “Yes, but I’m not. Come on. The living room's through here."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Decided to revisit this for today's MM.

Shiro’s place is quiet and tasteful, with white, open walls and lots of light. The furniture is simple, almost streamlined, and if it weren’t for the orange cat asleep in the armchair and a blanket bundled onto the couch, it’d be hard to believe that anyone actually lives here. It’s the antithesis of how he and Hunk live; not like slobs, exactly, but like busy people whose stuff is everywhere, whose books and dinner plates and empty glasses end up tangled on the coffee table with Xbox controllers and extra pens and the junk mail that Hunk isn’t ready to throw away. Keith doesn’t think their apartment has ever looked this clean, this austere--even on the day they moved in.

“You’re, ah,” he says, trying not to making his goggling obvious. “This is nice.”

“Thank you. Here, please. Sit.”

The couch is khaki-colored and freaking immaculate. He sits gingerly, watches Shiro fold himself on the other end and curl up in the blanket.

“Sorry,” Shiro says, a little pink in his cheeks. “I’m always cold.”

“No, it’s--it’s your house. You don’t have to apologize. I mean, you should see what Hunk does.”

“Hunk?”

“He’s my roommate,” Keith says. “Nice guy, great cook. Prone to bunny slippers and this big, fluffy robe like the second he gets home from class. He likes to be comfortable, he says. I think he’s worn pajamas to school more than once this week. Has this pair of _Doctor Who_ sweatpants that he--” He stops, stumbles over his own tongue. “Shit, I’m babbling, aren’t I? Sorry.”

Shiro’s smile is small and kind. “No, you’re not. He sounds like an interesting guy.”

“We’ve been best friends since high school. He’s, ah, he’s one of few people I’ve ever met who can see through my bullshit, you know? Who’s not afraid to call me on it. Who's really good at calling me on it, actually."

“And you appreciate that, I’m guessing?”

Keith laughs, a nervous exhale of breath. “God, yes. It’s easy for me to get tangled up inside my own head and Hunk, he never lets me stay there too long.”

“That’s good,” Shiro says. “Everybody needs someone like that.”

Something about the way that he says it kicks Keith back to reality, back to the reason he knocked on Shiro’s door in the first place, the reason he’s sitting on the man’s couch at all. “But what about you? You said there’s nobody you can call to, um--to help?”

“No. There isn’t.” Shiro sighs. “There used to be. He used to live here, actually.”

“Oh,” Keith says. “Did you guys break up?”

“No. He died.”

“He--?”

“Died, a little less than a year ago. Got hit by a car on the way home from work. Crushed him and his bike. There wasn’t anything they could do. Died before the ambulance got there.”

“Fuck, Shiro.”

Shiro’s eyes are soft and sad. “Yeah. We’d been together five years, all through grad school, and it was--it took me a long time to really understand that he was gone.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t--I can’t even imagine what that must be like.”

Shiro pulls the blanket tighter and looks away, sends his eyes towards the windows. “You know what the funny thing is, Keith? Most days, I can't either."

“But--” Keith chews on the words, tries to find some diplomacy. “But if that happened a while ago, why are you--? I mean, how come you’re only, uh, experiencing this now?”

“You mean, why do I smell so goddamn sad?”

“Um. Yeah.”

Shiro’s face is still turned away but Keith can see the color in them, the blush becoming a blaze. “Because it’s my time. The first one since Adam died.”

“You’re in _heat_?”

“Yes.”

Keith nearly falls off the couch. “But you--you can’t be! You don’t smell at all like you’re--”

“I know!” Shiro barks, so loud the cat startles. He turns to Keith with wide, frightened eyes. “I know I don’t smell right! I don’t feel right, either. That’s what I’m trying to tell you: something’s wrong with me.”

“What?”

“It feels like--it feels like everything in me’s been dampened, you know? Like I’m being smothered from the inside out, like my heat is--” He stops, his mouth working around words that won’t quite form. “I don’t know how it is for you, but my heat’s always made me feel like I’ve swallowed a forest fire. As if there are flames inside me trying to eat their way out. Does that make sense?”

Keith nods. For him, it’s always felt like lava, like his body is doing all it can to pull him into a volcano bit by burning bit. “It does.”

“Well, now I feel like I’m trapped in a room full of smoke. I know there’s a fire somewhere off in the distance, I can feel it, but all I can do is choke on these great, awful gray clouds of smoke and dead ash. It’s been almost a week, Keith, and I can’t find the goddamn flames.”

“Did you see a doctor?”

Shiro shakes his head, gray waves tumbling over his eyes. “No,” he says, adamant, “no way. A doctor can’t fix this. Nobody can.”

“What? Come on, Shiro. That’s crap. You said yourself you don’t know what this is, why you’re feeling this way. Why you’ve felt this way for a whole fucking week.” There’s a blur of fury in his head, a strong desire to grab this guy by the shoulders and shake him. “You’ve gotta let somebody help you, or at least see if they can.”

“Adam’s dead.” Shiro’s voice is a dull knife. “Nobody can change that.”

The words pound out before Keith can stop them. “You’re not the first person ever who’s lost their mate. You get that, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said. Other people have been through this, they must have. Somebody’s gotta know what to do.”

Shiro makes a low noise in his throat. “Don’t. It’s not that simple.”

“Maybe it is! Maybe if you stopped moping around here, stopped wallowing in your self-appointed martyrdom or whatever, and asked somebody for help, you might be able to feel better!”

“I asked you to come in, didn’t I?!”

The air in the whole place goes still, still like it’s frozen, still like the room’s turned to stone. They stare at each other. Stare, until the hair on Keith’s neck is up and standing, until Shiro’s face falls out of fierce and into embarrassment.

“Oh my god,” Shiro says, strained. He's as white as the walls. “I didn’t mean that. Not like that sounded.”

“It’s ok.”

“No, please don’t do that. It’s not. It’s the opposite of ok, it’s--”

There’s a storm in Keith’s head, a roar of rain and uncomfortable thunder, and it’s only when he stands up, stumbles, that he realizes how close they’d gotten, how far across the couch he’d somehow slid without even knowing; his knees are brushing Shiro’s blanket. “It’s fine,” he spits out. “I mean, I’m fine. I know you didn’t mean, ah, but I need to--I’ve gotta go.”

“Of course,” Shiro says. Keith watches him swallow, watches him try in vain to look calm again, cool. “Of course. Are you ok to--?”

“I can find the door,” Keith says, far too loud, his voice ringing in his own burning ears. “No problem.”

He ducks out in a rush, pretends he doesn’t hear Shiro calling _Nice to meet you._ Pretends he doesn’t want to turn back and call: _You, too_.

 _What the hell_ , his brain says as he books it back across the hall, grabs his bag and keys in as fast he fucking can. What the hell was that?

It stays in a loop all afternoon and long into the night: What the hell. What the _hell_.

“Dude,” Hunk says during a rerun of _Chopped_ : omelets without eggs. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m good.”

“Really? Because that’s the second beer you’ve knocked over in ten minutes and we’re not made of money here, bub.”

“Sorry,” Keith says, scrambling, tipping his can back towards the vertical. “My bad.”

He can feel Hunk’s side eye. “Mmmhmm. You wanna talk about it?”

“What?”

“Whatever it is that’s not wrong.”

“Seriously, man. I’m fine. Just tired or something.”

“Or something.”

“Hunk.”

Hunk holds up his hands. “Hey, man,” he says. “Sure. You’re fine. Of course you are. Look at you over there, being so ok.”

He gets the can to his lips and manages a long, bitter gulp. “Right.”

He begs off after the third episode and goes to bed early, lies in the dark begging his head to turn off. It doesn’t.

Shiro’s face drifts behind his eyelids, drawn and pale and sad until suddenly it wasn’t, until his head had snapped around and he’d said:

_I asked you to come in, didn’t I?!_

But he hadn’t meant it, had he. That’d been the sadness talking, the frustration, the grief. Shiro had painted himself into some sort of weird corner and Keith--someone he didn’t know, had never said two words to before--had been the first to call him on it, that’s all. Keith had been the first to offer any help (or the first that Shiro had listened to? Who knew) and that was all it was, what Shiro had said: an acknowledgement of how hard it’d been to take that first step, to make that first small gesture towards hope.

He hadn’t meant--he didn’t _want_ Keith. He didn’t know Keith and Keith sure as hell didn’t know him. Didn’t want him. Wasn’t lying in bed thinking about him, this incredibly attractive man who lived across the hall; his neighbor, practically a stranger, who moved with a careful sort of grace, who was always cold, who was probably in his own bed right now under a whole stack of blankets, shivering, shivering, swimming in smoke and dying for the fire to break.

Keith can't imagine what that would feel like, having his heat right there, seemingly at the ready, but always just out of his reach. He doesn't crave his heats, like some, didn’t spend a whole year dreaming of the day he’d wake up and know nothing but hunger, want nothing more than the hands of another alpha, a long, soothing tongue, big hands to hold him down or hold him up and give to him willingly, take. No, he doesn't crave heat but he can't imagine what it would be like to feel only its edges, to have the worst of the flames dance and flicker out of his hold. He thinks of Shiro’s face; imagines it contorted by the fear that his grief would never end, that he would pass each and every day stuck body and soul in the past, all that he was waiting for a key in the lock, the sound of a footstep, a scent that had passed from this world never to be seen again.

He tucks his face deep into his pillow and lets the tears fall from his face. All he’d done, he realizes, shivering under thin, cold sheets, was to make everything that much worse.

 _Oh, Shiro_ , he thought. You poor, sad bastard. Are you sorry that you let me in?

He dreams of not breathing, he dreams of Shiro’s eyes, he dreams of a weight that settles on his chest, an anvil; when he touches it, tries his best to push it away, it feeds him handfuls of petals, white and gray and cool, that smooth their way over his body, drift down to touch every inch of his flesh.

 _They’re so heavy_ , he says.

 _Yes,_ someone says in his ear. _A burden. But they’re beautiful, too, aren't they?_

 _Yes_ , he echoes, turning his face towards the voice as petals drift blind over his eyes.  _Yes._

 

*****

When he wakes up, it’s too early, six fucking thirty, and his bed is a mess. The sheets are twisted around his legs and both pillows are on the other side of the room. He’s sweating. His head hurts like a motherfucker. He feels sick.

He stumbles to the bathroom and tugs off his boxers and it’s only when he’s in the shower, standing under scalding water that’s colder than his skin that his addled head gets its shit together and tells him what he should already know, what his body can already feel:

“Oh, fuck,” he says to the soap, to Hunk’s rubber duck. “I’m in heat.”

“But you can’t be!” Hunk says, his eyes wide with alarm. “You just were, like, three months ago!”

Keith nods and pulls open the fridge. It feels like he’s moving in slow motion. “I know, dude. I know.”

Hunk reaches past him and snags a Gatorade, pushes it into Keith’s hands. “Is that--is that a thing that can happen? I feel like you would’ve told me if it was. I mean, I’m sure Pidge’ll let me stay at her place, that’s cool, I don’t mind a last-minute relocation, but come on, Keith: an extra bonus heat you had no idea was coming? That seems bad.”

“It’s not good.”

“Right. Exactly. Right.” Hunk’s hands fly around, nervous energy with no place to go. “So what do we do?”

Keith laughs, a high sound that’s more like a howl, and it must be freaky because Hunk legit takes two big steps away. “Honestly? I have no fucking clue.”


	3. Chapter 3

After Hunk leaves--in a flurry, a semi-state of sheer panic, and enough clothes to get him through a few days--Keith hunkers down on the couch with Gatorade and bad daytime TV.

This is the part of a heat that nobody talks about. All the romance novels, the teen dramas, even the porn that Lance talks too much about, they all skip right to the good part; they pretend that alphas can the hormonal yo yo and just, like, magically wake up with a neverending hard-on and a need to claim and bite and fuck. It’s not that neat for most people, though. Never has been for Keith. The books they made them read in middle school and the cringey videos they had to sit through in high school sex ed--they’d explained How Alpha Heats Work, outlining the gross effects of such big shifts in body chemistry and brain function and zero percent of it was sexy at all. But since less than a quarter of the country was alpha, most people didn’t know what heat felt like, the way those first few hours made you feel like you’d been tied to a rock and dragged face first through the dirt. The way you got so thirsty you drank everything in the fridge except your roommate’s skunky beer--even the almond milk, yuck--in a vain attempt to make your tongue feel like something other than sandpaper stuck in the sun to dry. The way you sweated through two pairs of sleep pants and three shirts but couldn’t stop shivering, no matter how many blankets you piled on; the way you were starving but couldn’t choke down any food; the way your head hurt so bad that you couldn’t even focus on _The Price is Right_. The way you felt like your body was actively betraying you, going out of its way, even, to be a complete and total dick; the way you prayed (out loud) for a good twenty minutes that the gods would zap you out of your misery long enough to fall back asleep.

Maybe it’s understandable that pop culture alphas get to skip all that shit. Lucky bastards, Keith thinks, shoving the sweat out of his eyes. How come they get to be fictional?

By noon, he is seriously disgusting and a shower, however shivery, seems like a better option than staring miserably at Judge Judy. So he bundles himself up and shuffles to the bathroom, a couple of blankets in tow.

That’s the other thing the movies leave out: all the fucking laundry. Who’s gonna magically clean all this stuff, not to mention all his extra clothes, his pillows, his sheets? Oh, that’s right--Keith is. Awesome. So great. Heat is so much fucking fun.

When the water’s at scalding and the bathroom’s starting to steam, he risks it, dumps his blankets and his pjs and scrambles in, positions himself full force under the spray. The water goes to work on his headache and on his aching muscles, too--huh, he thinks, reaching for the fancy lemongrass soap that Hunk buys in bulk, he hadn’t realized how stiff his shoulders had gotten, or his neck. He must’ve been laying weird on the couch.

The water pressure is dodgy and he can’t find a washcloth but the relief the shower brings is bone deep and immediate. It sloughs of the sick feeling, the cold nausea, the headache, and makes him feel almost human again.

Good, he thinks with a sigh, with a stretch of his spine. That feels good.

He works the soap into another lather and washes himself again, watches the bubbles trail down his skin and gather in a rush towards the drain. He scrubs hard enough that his flesh starts to tingle, that the smell of the lemongrass soaks past the stuffy stink of his body and fills his nose with brightness, a breeze; something like the first breath of summer after a winter of long, lonely nights. He breathes again and sees white walls and windows, feels a hand on his elbow, hears an echo of Shiro’s voice:

_Come on in._

There’s water everywhere, steam, and it’s easy to close his eyes.

 _Keith_ . Shiro’s hand on his back, broad and possessive; a catch of nails on his neck. _I was hoping you’d come back._

His hips shift, his stance does, and it’s only when he has himself in hand that he groks what’s happening, where his mind’s gone and why.

Ah, he thinks dimly, pitching his free hand against the tile, squeezing the other until the tiny bathroom’s ringing with a low, fervent moan. Fantastic. Perpetual boner time.

He closes his eyes again--it feels almost defensive; it’s easier to feel that way, not to think--and Shiro is there, gray hair black with water, those soft eyes sharp and hungry. He touches Keith’s imaginary mouth with his imaginary fingers and Keith gives him imaginary teeth, bites down none too gently.

Shiro lets him. Shiro lets him have more.

 _Alpha_ , Shiro chides. _Tsk. You can’t scare me away_.

It’s been a long time since Keith’s head had a real alpha to latch onto, to wallow in during the thick of his heat. Usually, it’s some celebrity his mind puts there, some pretty alpha his brain understands he’ll never meet, never have occasion to touch, and somehow, that makes it ok, all the dirty paces his imagination puts him through during the fevered days of his heat. But Shiro’s a real person. Shiro’s someone he might see in the laundry room or at the mailboxes or pass on the stairs. Shiro’s someone who’s built and who’s beautiful and who lives across the hall, yes, but who Keith barely knows and will probably never talk to again and so it’s fine to let his head go there, to let his hand slide over his cock with Shiro’s voice in his ear, with the shadow of Shiro’s hands on his chest, on his stomach, on the eager outline of his hips.

 _Want to see you come_ , Shiro whispers, his fingers drifting lower, teasing. _Want to watch you bring yourself off, alpha. Can I?_

“Yes.” His voice rings off the tile. “Oh fuck, yes.”

 _Yes_?

“Yes. But let me come on your face.” Just hearing himself say it makes him hot, makes his cheeks burn, makes his cock kick in his fist. Fuck.

 _Oh_ . Shiro dips his head, rubs his mouth against Keith’s neck. _You want to mark me?_ _Is that it?_

Shit. Keith’s knees stutter. He feels suddenly weak. “Please.”

A little groan, a sweet little bite, and then Shiro’s shadow is on his knees, his eyes closed against the barrage of water, his face tipped forward, his fingers dug into the meat of Keith’s thighs. _Yes. Do it. Please._

And then Keith is lost, he is going straight to bad neighbor hell, because in his head, Shiro is stroking himself, too, pulling at his big, pretty cock as he watches Keith’s fist fly, and he’s groaning, this guy Keith’s only met once, the only other alpha in the building, a man with serious issues of grief and loss and all Keith can think about is seeing Shiro like this, his knees slick with water and soap, his eyelids fluttering as he fights the water and desire to pry them open and meet Keith’s head on and Keith comes like that, in one hard, beautiful punch, Shiro gasping and Shiro moaning and Shiro’s cheek, his mouth, battered for a moment with white, and the sound Keith makes, _Christ_ , it’s like nothing he’s ever heard.

Wounded. That’s what he sounds like. Like somebody’s ripped his heart out.

No, he thinks, falling back against the wall, sliding, nearly beaning himself on the showerhead. Like somebody’d ripped his heart out through his dick.

 _Keith_. Shiro’s cheek pressed against his knee, his eyes wide and exquisitely dark. _Alpha. You’re not going to leave me like this, are you?_

He feels a wave of want, an unmistakable weight in his balls, and he chokes. Jesus, already? It hasn’t been more than a minute, and it’s--already? Again?

“Uh oh,” he hears himself say, even as he imagines Shiro on his feet, Shiro reaching for him, Shiro hot against his hip, in his grip. “This might be bad.”


	4. Chapter 4

He stays in the shower until it runs cold, nothing warm left in the tank. His body, however, has the opposite problem: he’s filled to his ears up with heat.

He trips over blankets on the way to his bed, doesn’t bother with a towel, and when he makes it to the twisted sheets and falls helpless on his back, he’s gasping, breathing in quick, hungry pulses like his lungs are clawing for air. His balls are drawn up and he’s horny and he can’t stop grinning, is the worst part, because holy shit, does he feel _good_.

He fumbles for the lube in his nightstand, knocks over the lamp, and he doesn’t give a shit about it, the broken glass, the noise, the sudden darkness; all he cares about is soothing the swell of his dick with slick fingers and moving his fist in time with the pictures in his head, a swirl now, slice after slice of Shiro’s mouth and Shiro’s hands and Shiro’s eyes, those dark, sad eyes lit up now, perched above him as Shiro pins him and Shiro fills him and Shiro kisses away every sigh.

 _Keith_ , his dream Shiro murmurs. _Shhh,_   _I’ve got you._

He’s never been with another alpha during heat. Five years of the damn things and it’s always been him and his hand and the occasional toy and the flash fire of his imagination and ok, that’s not ideal exactly, but it’s always felt like enough. It had to be. Bad enough that when it hit in high school, everybody knew exactly why he missed school for three days. Bad enough that there were, oh, maybe a dozen alphas in the whole place, tops; that they got teased all the time about being fuck buddies even though they didn’t speak to each other, made a point of avoiding even eye contact, much less being friends. An unspoken rule of mutual avoidance that spared them exactly no teasing but it’d made a lot of sense at the time. They were different, and being different alone was a hell of a lot safer than being different together. Or so they'd all thought.

It wasn’t like that at college, though. It hadn’t been until then that he’d seen alphas hanging out together like it was normal, like it was nothing, and watched the rest of the world not give a shit. Once, freshman year, when he’d gotten lost in the fine arts building, he’d even seen two alphas kissing, pressed together in a back hallway, both moaning as one dipped his hand down the other’s jeans. He’d stood there for way too long, frozen, watching them touch each other, and it wasn’t until he was back in his dorm room, spunk drying on his hand that he realized that he hadn’t smelled heat. They were just two people who liked each other, who wanted each other, like anybody. It was the first time he’d actually understood that two alphas could really do that.

Two alphas like Shiro and Adam. They were a pair. They had been. And now Shiro was alone and Shiro was in heat but he wasn’t; something wouldn’t let him.

There’s a noise in Keith’s throat now, one that tastes like smoke, and Shiro’s smell, Shiro’s sadness, is everywhere. It shoves past the rich sweet of his own heat and chokes him, wraps it long fingers of grief around his throat and around his wrist and makes his fist move faster, makes the stiffness of his cock almost too much to bear.

In his mind, Shiro's still inside him, still peering down, but now he’s brushing the tears from Keith’s cheeks, nuzzling the side of his face, kissing the ones he can’t catch.

 _Keith, it’s all right_.

“No, it’s not,” he gets out, raspy like he’s just run a mile. “You’re hurting and I’m using you.”

 _You’re not_ . A hint of teeth on his throat. _Maybe I need this too, alpha._

Keith’s hips arch up, twist. “No.”

Shiro’s shadow’s there to meet him and shove him back flat. _Yes. After all, you marked me, didn’t you?_

“In my head. It was just a fantasy, I--”

Shiro chuckles, a sound he has to stretch to imagine. _You came to me, didn’t you? Into my house._

“You invited me.”

 _You touched me._  Their hands clasped, the way Keith had lingered. _You left your scent on my skin._

“I’m didn’t mean to,” Keith says to no one, to the lonely stretch of his bed, the room, even as his cock jerks greedily at the thought. His smell on Shiro’s hand, on his couch. The soft places where Shiro was hiding away from the world--part of Keith was there now, a little hint of what was waiting outside. “I’m sorry.”

In his mind, Shiro’s mouth is hot on his neck, wet, his thrusts starting to stutter. _No, you’re not_ , he breathes in Keith’s ear. _You’re not. It’s making you so fucking hot_. _You’re going to come again, aren’t you?_

“No,” Keith says. It’s a howl, not a word. “No, Shiro, no, I’m not.”

In answer, a growl, an unmistakably alpha sound. _Yes you are, sweetheart. I’m going to make you._

When he breaks, it’s like a dam shattering--tears on his chin and come smearing his fist and the _noise_ , jesus, he’s never heard a sound it, not even in Lance’s stupid porn: it’s need, is what it is, need and grief and pleasure knotted together. It makes his teeth clatter. It makes his heart ache.

 _There now_ , his imagined Shiro says, voice golden with satisfaction, gilded by love. _That’s right, baby. Let it all out._

Pulse after pulse and dream Shiro humming against his cheek, still buried inside him, riding out every kick of his hips.

“Please,” Keith whispers, his free hand clutching the sheets. “Shiro, please. I need you.”

“You need me?”

It takes him a moment to realize the voice is real, a moment more to pry open his eyes, to think, very clearly: _Oh shit_.

Because Shiro’s standing in his doorway, looking like he just rolled out of bed: hair rumpled and jeans wrinkled and his hands turned into fists.

“Well,” Shiro says, the word deep and rich, “hell. This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

Keith should be panicking. Why isn't he panicking. “Your, er--?”

Shiro’s gaze slides up his body, slow and undeniably hungry. Gone is the drawn face from yesterday, the embarrassed flush; now, he’s all cheekbones and red beautiful lips. “I never should have let you in yesterday. I knew it was a mistake, honestly. And I did it anyway.” He tilts his head, gives up a grin that's blinding. “But you know what?”

Keith feels like he’s holding his breath. Because oh yeah, he is. “What?”

Shiro growls and reaches for the button of his jeans. Peels them down and steps out of them, then and there. “Right now,” Shiro says, this man doesn’t Keith doesn’t know, this man who’s naked in his doorway, who smells two steps from heaven as he crawls onto Keith's bed and reaches for him. “Right now, I don’t fucking care.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woke up this morning with these fellas in mind. Nice to revisit them.


End file.
